


King Takes Pawn

by cat_77



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: A Doorway into the Dark, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Episode 02.02, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 04:39:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15307659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: In chess, the move would be illegal and the board would be reset.  Valentine never played by the rules.Set during Episode 02.02: A Doorway into the Dark.





	King Takes Pawn

**Author's Note:**

> For the “gaslighting” square at hc_bingo.
> 
> * * *

“She’s hurt because of you, you know.” Valentine said the words with such conviction, and almost a sense of glee. “My daughter, your sister, is bleeding because of you,” he spat.

“That’s not true!” Clary shouted, or at least tried to. Blood dribbled from her lips and she wiped it against her shoulder given that her hands were bound behind her back. He wasn’t sure if she had bit her cheek or bit her tongue, but the effect was the same. She had tried to escape and one of Valentine’s minions had caught her, slammed her against the hull with a grip on her throat that had already left visible bruising, as if the hoarseness of her voice wasn’t telling enough.

Jace had told her to stay down, to hide as much as possible, to let him take the punishments. She had challenged the minion, Franklin his name might have been, and taken off running towards the bridge of the ship. He had told her only hours before that he thought there might be a radio there, a way to call for help, but that they needed to wait, to plan, to not be obvious if they were going to get away with it.

“Now, Jonathan, we need to fix the damage your dear sister has done, do you think you can manage that?” Valentine asked with false sweetness. Unable to find the radio, Clary had just started ripping things apart in a vague hope something would set off an alarm or leave a trail that the others could track them by. She had little scrapes and tears along her fingers, tiny droplets of red smeared to coppery brown.

Clary gasped and Jace realized he hadn’t answered yet. The minion had grabbed her by her hair and held a blade to her throat. He doubted he would kill her, not Valentine’s daughter, but he would make her hurt, just like he himself had been made to hurt. He knew their father could have stopped the action, just as he knew he wouldn’t, not yet. It was an unspoken threat of what would happen if he were to disobey again.

“I’ll do it,” he agreed, not that he had any actual idea what was being asked of him. “Let her use a stele to heal herself, please? Her throat...”

Valentine simply smirked. “You giving me orders, boy?” he teased. He tapped a finger against his lips as if contemplating some grand question in life though even Jace knew it was all for show. “Tell you what, get me the engineer I want, and you can heal your sister yourself, how about that?”

Jace nodded and tried not to look at Clary’s pleading eyes, the blood smeared on her shirt. It was as fair of a deal as he was going to get and they both knew it.

He found the man and brought him back. Not that he was allowed to go alone, and not that he would have risked leaving Clary behind despite the fact he had ample opportunity to escape. His father praised him for being so well behaved and handed him a stele. There was so much he could do with such an item, but not while Clary was hurting. Not while there were more than a dozen armed men surrounding them both.

Still, he gripped the little piece of metal for longer than he was apparently supposed to and found a blade at his throat for his troubles. His father ripped the stele from his hand with enough force to twist his wrist and dislocate his thumb before he whispered a harsh, “Don’t be a hero, son.”

The moment his back was turned, Clary lunged at him, only to be stopped by the two men closest to her. “See, she at least has the courage to fight back,” their father huffed. He tilted his head towards his men and ordered, “Lock her up. Lock both of them up. Separately.” As he stormed away, Jace swore he heard him mutter, “The things you make me do.”

Clary was shoved into a cage against the wall and he was shoved into the one he was starting to almost think of as his personal quarters on the ship. They were close enough to talk, to reach if they stretched, and he knew that was no accident.

They had uncuffed her when they tossed her in, and she rubbed at her wrists even though the rune magic had taken away the worst of the red already. “Are you okay?” he asked, needing to know that more than anything else.

She didn’t answer him, or at least she didn’t answer his question. “Why didn’t you run?” she demanded. “You were out, there’s no way you couldn’t have handled the men that he sent with you. It was your chance at escape!”

“There’s no way I could leave you here,” he countered. “Not with him. Not with what he’s capable of.”

“I can handle myself,” she huffed.

“I- I couldn’t take that risk,” he admitted. While true that Valentine had yet to hurt her outright himself, it could be only a matter of time. She was leverage against him, the unspoken threat of possibility in the air any time Jace dared to question his orders.

She sat back against the bars of her cage, a sea of red knotted hair the only thing visible to him at that point. “He’s really done a number on you, hasn’t he?” she sighed. There was no harshness to it, only resignation and maybe the slightest hint of regret.

“For longer than you could ever guess,” he agreed. He sat down in a similar position and tried to yank his finger back into place. “I know he’s manipulating me, but I also can’t figure out a way around it. He’s my father. He’s the man who raised me, just with a different face. So many of his words are the same that...”

“That you keep remembering what it used to be like,” Clary finished for him. Between Jace himself and a few conversations with Izzy, she knew a little about his background. Not that his surrogate sister had betrayed him, just that he had overheard her trying to explain that Shadowhunters did not have childhoods like the typical Mundane, and that Jace’s wasn’t even typical for a Shadowhunter. He grew up expecting life to be harsh, that you worked for your keep, praise was rare but all the better for it. Friendships were weaknesses, they provided vulnerabilities for the enemy to use against you, just like his father was doing now.

Because his father was the enemy. He knew that. He knew that at a level that was bone deep. But he was also his father. The man who raised him and took care of him and helped him grow up, help him become the man he was today. Jocelyn he abandoned him, chose his sister over him, not that he could blame her. Pure demon blood ran through his veins. He was a threat to everyone around him, especially a newborn baby.

His head hurt thinking about it all. He couldn’t get a grip on his emotions and even the Lightwoods had taught him that would be a downfall if he didn’t watch out for it. He wanted to lash out. At Jocelyn for abandoning him. At Clary for being the chosen child. At Valentine for the choices he made, the way he steered a young Jace’s life onto the path he was on now.

But Jocelyn had just been trying to protect, both herself and her baby. Clary hadn’t even known she had a brother, and then thought he had died long ago. And Valentine himself? He could have killed Jace a thousand times over by now, but had chosen not to.

Maybe it was because he was his weapon, a trained soldier to lead his armies. But maybe it was because he was his son, and that parental bond played a role, served as a protection. Valentine had taught him so many things, even if nothing from the past or present made any sense as to how it would lead to a future at the given moment.

“You can’t let him into your head,” Clary whispered, pleaded to him.

It was too late though. He had always been there, maybe he always would be. He was in his blood and, as long as that fact remained true, there was no changing that.


End file.
